I've been asked by a couple people to repost my home made crawfish traps. They will stay in the trap as long as the food exists, I've had over 40 in a single trap. These are cheap and easy to use.

1/2" square, 36" wide Wire is from home depot, and costs $15. You can make 3 traps easy out of a single small roll of wire.

Lay out wire flat so its easy to work with

Measure 3" and set a straight edge to bend the wire against.

Measure 12" and make second bend

Measure another 3" and make another bend.

Cut the wire 4" from the last bend, this extra 1" will be used to hook the edges together

Hook the 2 ends together, wrap wire ends around adjacent edges. It should resemble a box now

On each side of the open end, measure 4" and cut back along the bend, then around to remove 4" of mesh on all but one of the 12" wide sides.

Bend the 4" piece back and into the trap, forming a ramp. Wire the sides so it makes a 1.5 to 1-3/4" gap between the edge of the ramp to the top of the trap.

Repeat for other side. You can choose to close off the other side completely, but I find making a ramp on both sides allows more crawfish in the trap.

In the bottom of the trap in the center, cut out a 4x4" hole and make a hindged door to allow placement of bait.

Spray trap with a non-reflective paint. Tie a braided string to the center of the top to allow placement / recovery of the trap. Use whatever you want for a float marker (twist top pop bottle works fine).

You dont have to paint them... it protects against rust, makes it harder to see so people wont steal them (yes I've had a couple of these stolen... good thing they are cheap). I've also noticed a crayfish can be a little more hesitant to approach it on a bright day vs one with a more natural color.

There are pesky turtles in the ponds I fish at and I was thinking of trapping some crawdads to use for bait to see if I cant catch a big catfish. Do you have turtles? I think a turtle would want some of the bait and may injure get stuck in it too?

I built a trap that was very similar to the one you have shown here, but I always had one problem with it. I would usually just tie a rope to it and swing it out into the lake. It would almost always land upside down so the ramp leading into the trap was on the top, and crawdads could come in and go as they pleased.

Are you carefully placing your traps so this doesn't happen or is there some trick to it?

I eventually decided that I should just make a double ramp on each entrance, so regardless of how the trap lands it will work.

And honestly, after numerous finger pokes from that danged hardware cloth, I have given up building more traps and I'm just buying them now.

"It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it." - George Washington

I think I've seen them the cheapest at Sportsman's. They look like this. I use the round ones myself, but I don't know which shape is best.

When I go out for crawdads I throw my traps in for a few hours and I always catch a few. I'm usually not leaving them in for more than a couple of hours (I like to fish while my traps are in) but I can catch a TON more by hand just by wading in the shallows with a net. It's more fun too.

"It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it." - George Washington

You can certainly buy traps if you want. I only posted this as its a fun project to do with your kids, and you can build 3 large traps for the cost of a single store bought trap.

downed_Phly wrote:

I think I've seen them the cheapest at Sportsman's. They look like this. I use the round ones myself, but I don't know which shape is best.

I've got both of those commercially made ones. If you drop the square trap in the water where you can see it, come back and you will notice more of them hanging on the outside than inside.

The round ones suck. I've tried it off and on and at most, I've had 2 in it :( It works much better as a minnow trap.

Quote:

When I go out for crawdads I throw my traps in for a few hours and I always catch a few. I'm usually not leaving them in for more than a couple of hours (I like to fish while my traps are in) but I can catch a TON more by hand just by wading in the shallows with a net. It's more fun too.

The net sounds fun. I've never gone specifically for crawdads though. The traps are fun to just toss out and check from time to time as we troll past. I've had a few stolen though so I no longer paint my bottles orange (I use something that hides well, then mark the trap loc on the GPS).

I imagine that making your own crawdad traps doubles the fun of crawdadding, just like the double thrill I get when I catch a fish on a fly that I tied myself. Thanks for giving me the inspiration (and instructions) for making my own crawdad traps. With their large openings, they look like they'll work much better than the round one I have with the holes on either end. That won't be hard though because it hardly works at all.

A small amount of research on crab pots might solve a few of the problems mentioned (weighted open trap with a float to keep your trap upright). Seems to me that they're not much different. I only used my box traps for long term outings or in areas with alot of seals when I lived in Oregon.

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